Dealing with height on ladders.

[Mike Clarke]

It's stepping back from the roof onto the ladder that I find more scary.

[tony sayer]

Steeplejack .. different class of bloke altogether;!...

[Neil Williams]

Fair point - I guess it's at that point that (if it's not secure) you stand more of a chance of kicking it down.

Neil

[John Rumm]

Yes I take the point. Personally I don't venture on to tiles or slates without a roof ladder to spread the load a bit - otherwise they tend to pass comment on my weight by breaking, and I waste time replacing them!

When selecting a roof ladder, I went for a fairly long one (7.6m extended) on the grounds that it would be more versatile - however the down side is that its also heavier at about 20kg and requires a fair bit of effort to pull up and get into place on a roof while standing at the top of a ladder. (20kg may not sound like much - but its plenty to be titting about with on a ladder!)

[John Rumm]

I presume that if you fix a rope and then ascend adding additional fixings as you go - the rope is looped through these additional fixings such that the full length of rope down to the first proper fix counts in the above calculation?

i.e. rope belayed to the ground, with the last anchor at 8m, and the climber falling from 2m above the last anchor, would count as a 2m fall on 10m of rope rather than 2 on 2?

[John Rumm]

Steeplejacks ladders are very different to your average "lean against the wall" class of ladder being bolted[1] to the thing you are climbing.

[1] I say bolted, but don't actually know how they fixed their ladders/

[John Rumm]

Most manually erected ladders (i.e. without rope extension systems) seem to top out about 35' (10.5m) - which means you could reach a bit above that safely (although not step off onto a surface etc at that height.

Not sure I would want to go much beyond that on a lean to ladder (I don't think I have ever used my ladder at full extension yet - although have probably done 30' on it)

[Steve Walker]

I've been up a wooden ladder of around that height to access a temporary platform up the side of a factory. The bounce in the middle of the ladder was quite unnerving.

Lying on the platform checking an instrument when it began to snow heavily was not good either.

SteveW

[tony sayer]

Usually they have "hook" type attachments built into the structure they hook the upper part of the ladder onto then tie them together as they go higher..

Well thats what Fred Dibnah did when he did the Gasworks chimney in Cambridge..

[Steve Walker]

again?

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

Bugger! Someone beat me to it.

SteveW

[John Rumm]

I think wooden ones are worse in that respect than a decent box section ali one. Still not that many extending wood ladders in use these days it seems.

Yup, I can understand that! ;-)

[John Rumm]

Usually about now someone posts a DanO climb:

[Andy Burns]

because of *using* a rope, rather than *not* using one!

[MuddyMike]

My son and I drove a road like that in Lesotho, well more like a donkey track. We had to do 5+ point turns to get around the hairpin bends with one of us out spotting just how close to the edge the wheels were. I am not good on unprotected heights, this led to a terrifying morning!

Mike

[Robin]

Thanks: I think you have alerted me to need to buy new ladders. My 2x17 rung push-up double ladder must be about the same size as yours but weighs around 35kg with roof hooks bolted on. It's all I can do to shift it let alone tilt it :(

[Matty F]

I use wooden ladders most of the time when climbing around near bare overhead wiring while the power is on. Tower trucks have wooden extension ladders. However they are bolted to the truck, which weighs about 5 tons.

[John Rumm]

Fibreglass is the new wood for folks working near power lines etc...

[John Rumm]

That sounds more like a normal ladder with added hook, rather than a bespoke roof ladder as such... (my main 10.5m triple ladder is about 35kg)

I got one like:

ordered from a ebay ladder supplier at about half that price!)

[Nightjar]

... but even heavier.

Colin Bignell